


Blow a Kiss to the Wind

by veronicassadboi



Series: That's My Love (Dying for you) [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Just a shit load of sad shit, Light Angst, Mutually Unrequited, Temporarily Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, but it's not sad at the same time?, i dunno man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veronicassadboi/pseuds/veronicassadboi
Summary: “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if things had worked out different at Pop’s that day?”“When you arrived?” he asks.“Yes.”He lowers his head, runs fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have ever said you’d fall in love with Archie. I spoke it into existence.”“He wasn’t the one I was looking for.”“I know now.”Things can’t change, and they never will. “In the next world, Jughead Jones.”She blows a kiss into the wind. For what could have been’s.- Or, Jughead and Veronica say a lot of things, but never out loud and never to each other.
Relationships: Jughead Jones & Veronica Lodge, Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge, jeronica - Relationship, vughead - Relationship
Series: That's My Love (Dying for you) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1552432
Comments: 13
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [acrookedsaint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrookedsaint/gifts), [for reading this and making it worthwhile](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=for+reading+this+and+making+it+worthwhile).



> What can I say? I like sad stuff.

_**I Blow a Kiss to the Wind (and hope that you catch it)** _

* * *

Sitting in front of Jughead Jones the Third was a silence that Veronica Lodge thought she’d never be able to get used to. The absence of Archie Andrews walking her now dearest and brand new bestie, Betty, home, made the new town feels shake in her. 

Riverdale was small, but it was deep rooted and finding footing with Betty holding her hand made her feel safe. But the safety net created by Betty was stripped away when she left the booth. Instead, she’s stuck in front of the boy who was all dark and brooding, hidden and soulful. Bright, new and shiny in their very first encounter.

“You’ll fall in love with him, you know,” Jughead states while pulling out a laptop from a bag, running long fingers along the top before setting it on the table in front of him, never meeting her eyes. “ _Archie_.”

He was already two cups of strong coffee in and even when she prompted him with small talk, he had generic answers to every one of her mundane questions. “And what makes you say that?”

His lowly chuckle irritates her, as if it was just the way of the world - everyone is expected to fall in love with the red head. It just was. “He’s Archie, who doesn’t love him?”

“Anyone would think _you_ were the one in love with him,” she states, stirring her straw in thick chocolate. 

“I promise you, you will.” He tears his eyes away from his laptop if only for a second, placing them on her half filled milkshake with longing. “You don’t really seem to be the sort of person to live in a place like this, Veronica.”

“You don’t really seem like the type yourself.” 

“I’m not the type,” he concludes, running his tongue over his teeth. His smile is small but present, and the flexing of his fingers seems to be more of a nervous tick. 

“And what is your type, if I may ask?”

He pauses, eyes back on his laptop and a smug smirk creeping on him. “Someone who doesn’t fit in.” 

She tries to read him, the way his sighs feel heavy and the everlasting look of concern etched on his face. She skips a beat when he speaks because she doesn’t feel like a perfect fit in this new world of hers either. “Maybe we need to stick together, then.”

His smile holds a thousand words and Veronica thinks that she can finally read them. His head drops to the keys of his laptop. “A woman after my own heart, it seems.” 

When Pop’s calls her name, she slides out of the booth. “Nice to meet you, Jughead Jones the Third.” 

“In this world and the next, Veronica Lodge.” 

She blows him a kiss to the wind when she walks out with a bag of fries, “Until we meet again!” she calls. 

He laughs, shaking his head. “Monday, 9AM, Riverdale High.”

He promises she’ll fall in love with the broad shouldered boy, but why does she cling on to the fact that maybe she’s already met Jughead Jones in the old world, and he’s already waiting for her in the next?

* * *

  
He held his entire life’s belongings in a bag over his shoulder and he kicked empty popcorn cups along the gravel of the Drive-In. Veronica’s heart is full of remorse, it’s shallow in its beating out of her chest. Feeling like it sits right on the surface of her skin. Even the beanie that she’s sick of trying to talk him out of wearing constantly sits lopsided on his head. Her heart _hurts_. It hurts for _him_. “I’m sorry you have to leave… I’m sorry, I know how much you love this place,” she mumbled as she kicks empty popcorn cups behind him. 

“I thought Betty and Arch might’ve hung around, but I guess it’s just the two misfits of Riverdale after all.” He laughs like it’s a joke, Veronica feels like it’s not. “It’s been the closest thing to a home I’ve had in awhile.” 

He stops in front of her and she stops too when he spins on the spot to look at her. “I haven’t had a real home in a while either,” she replies quietly. “Things are strange between my parents… but you don’t want to hear about it.”

When she looked up into his eyes, all darkened and deep with tears welling and fists clenched, she wishes she could take him into her arms. She never did well with emotions, she doesn’t have the strength. “If you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen,” he says slowly. “It might even distract me from my own problems at hand.”

She appreciates the gesture, and she appreciates that someone actually asked. But his almost-tears match her ones and she doesn’t know where to turn. “I think we both need a distraction.”

He sniggers. “Agreed.”

“Come back to mine, I'd love the company and I think we would both appreciate a movie and a sugar high.” She fakes a tough smile and blows a kiss to the wind to entice him with promises of slasher films.

He reaches into the air to catch it and places it in his pocket. “To food and great distractions.”

She wonders if he’ll go home tonight to his dad. And if it feels more like a home than hers does.

After three movies in a row and too many scoops of ice cream, the Pembrooke feels a little like home when it’s got someone who cares in its walls. 

When he leaves, she blows another kiss to the wind for friendship. And one more to the hopes he’s going to rest easy tonight.

* * *

  
It’s midnight when he watches her wipe tables. It’s almost 2AM when he asks for another coffee, two sugars because; _“you’re extra sweet, V.”_

He touches on Archie briefly but she doesn’t really want to talk about him and Jughead’s incessant pushing of the topic makes his voice a little higher and his flexed-fingers-tick a little more prominent. “You love him, right?” He stumbles on his words when he doesn’t look at her.

Her heart cracks a little. She loves Archie because he’s sweet and kind and just her kind of change she was searching for in the new town. But there’s something in the way Jughead sits with her in the middle of the night and offloads his demons in exchange for her angels. She keeps them locked in the deepest part of her heart where she holds onto his understanding that he offers her. “I do,” she says, a little shallow, a little less meaning than she cares to admit. “Just like you promised I would.”

“I’m sure he loves you too, who wouldn’t?” He laughs nervously. “Your heart is so big, the sun has nothing on it, Princess. Your mind is so vast, people get lost in it.” He says it like a statement, an offhand comment. Nothing too important, nothing no one else wouldn’t say.

His words run off his honey coated tongue, his words stick to her like sugar on her fingers that she wants to lick - a little bit of him in her. 

She shrugs them off but turns to him at the counter at Pop’s and blows him a kiss. “A kiss for you understanding my mind more than I do.”

He blushes. “I’ll take it,V.”

* * *

  
They meet in the hallway with books hanging from their shoulders. But he’s not in class and she really should be. Her reason being she overslept, his was probably to do with that Southside Serpents jacket he wore.

When she asks where Betty is, he doesn’t have a true answer. Veronica knows that’s half the reason he wasn’t in class either. “They’re the only family I have at the moment,” he sighs with a weight on his shoulders and his heart as well.

“You’ve got Betty as well…” she tries to remind him. She doesn’t think he heard her, or if he did, the noisy static in his mind is clouding him. 

“Let’s skip class,” he says when a brand new spring in his step and a grin on his face. 

“And what would Betty say to that?” Veronica asks, rolling her eyes. 

Jughead pauses, his smile dropping. “I just want to have a conversation where I don’t feel guilty about every small aspect of my life, and every overwhelming one.”

Veronica doesn’t answer, but the moment she exhales, he sucks up air through his teeth. Forever in sync. “I better get to class, Jug. Archie is waiting for me.”

He nods, watching her walk away. “V?”

She turns to look with her hand on the door handle. “Jug.”

He blows a kiss to the wind. “A kiss for always being there just at the right moment. And talking me off the edge.”

She doesn’t say it, but she keeps the kiss for later. For when she’s all alone. 

* * *

  
“I don’t regret it,” he says quietly. “Kissing you.”

“Well I don’t either,” Veronica laughs. “To even the playing field, it was the most natural progression in this lull of our relationships,” she says, straightening her shoulders.

They stand out on the balcony of Lodge Lodge, her with a coffee, him with a cigarette. 

“It definitely made a difference in the lull.”

Veronica snickers. “Oh, I know.”

“We’re not so different, you and I,” he says quietly. “Like coffee and cigarettes. A perfect match.”

She doesn’t press the conversation, the kiss already sparked too much in her. Maybe they were a perfect match, like coffee and cigarettes - a jittery mess, a calming moment in time. 

They both stand and he watches her blow a kiss to the wind that she doesn’t speak into existence. This time, it was a kiss to the match made in heaven. 

* * *

  
The Serpent's protection came with a price. Jughead was around a lot more and it tore her very being into a million pieces that she wouldn’t ever be able to put back together.

Watching him under the dim lights of the Speakeasy wasn’t easy. Just as his eyes followed her behind the bar with a look that told her he felt the same. 

But maybe, she reads too much into it.

Late nights at the Speakeasy held secrets that no one would ever want to know, they were hidden in spilt whiskey and Serpents fists.

They were hiding in the way Jughead flutters around her when it was just them two in the room.

Tears spill from her eyes, one for every battle she faces. And the pain that she held for Archie while he was locked away.

Jughead pulls her close, he inhales deeply in her hair and she clings on like she never wants to let go. Her tears feel like a hurricane when she finally unleashes and spills everything on her mind onto Jughead’s chest - and he, the eye of her storm.

When he leaves, he blows a kiss to the wind. “A kiss to never being alone.”

But she feels so alone when he’s gone.

* * *

  
It’s pure poetry that they should be standing outside the Pembrooke in the pouring rain. She wears silk and heels in a puddle that clings to every part of her body in the middle of a downpour. He takes off his Serpents jacket and places it over her shoulders. It doesn’t make a difference to the drop in temperature, but it makes a difference of sentimental value. Priceless.

When there should be words spoken, there are none. He didn’t ride all the way to the Pembrooke in the rain just to have her stand outside and wait for him so he could give her his jacket. “I just… I haven’t seen you in a while, V.”

There were always words unspoken. _I haven’t seen you in a while because you’re avoiding me. But I’ve been avoiding you too. And we know there’s something happening._ “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if things had worked out different at Pop’s that day?”

“When you arrived?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He lowers his head, runs fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have ever said you’d fall in love with Archie. I spoke it into existence.”

“He wasn’t the one I was looking for.”

“I know now.”

Things can’t change, and they never will. “In the next world, Jughead Jones.”

She blows a kiss into the wind. For what could have been’s.

* * *

  
“I just… needed to hear your voice.”

He’s unsteady on the phone, heavy sighs crackle over the line and she lays in her bed, eyes closed, heart tearing at the sound of him. As much as she should rush him off the other end, she finds it hard not to keep him there all night when he’s all black and blues that match with her whites and grays - and he deciphers the code of her heart with his snarky comebacks, understanding of her very being. 

He just _is_ and she just _knows_.

She doesn’t say anything when he murmurs; “I wanted to make sure everything is okay… I appreciate the payment, but he’s your father and I…” he sighs. “I don’t want things to be weird between us, Veronica.”

She squeezes her eyes tighter, not wanting tears to spill. She wonders if he can feel them, even from all the way on Southside. Her mind tells her that’s stupid, her heart sings loudly for him. 

For the fact that he cares. For the fact that he understands.

“It’s fine, Jughead. Like I said, it’s Riverdale. This is the way it is.”

“No, V.” He falls static. “I wanted to protect you. I wanted to be straight with you. _Hell_ ,” he laughs without humour. “I just didn’t want you to go through any more of these spider webs and traps.”

She smiles to the ceiling, appreciating every single one of his scattered words. “At least you care, Jug.”

“Of course I do!” He says a little too stiffly to convince Veronica there were no undertones. “Veronica, I always care about you… I…” he trails off. “I care so much, it almost kills me.”

“Jug…” she says, tears edging on faster than she cares to admit, heart racing so hard she knows he can hear it.

“Veronica.”

“Bye, Jughead.”

Her smile on one end connects to his heart, a paper cup and string phone call of his heart telling her he loves her.

One spoken phone call of nothing in particular.

She looks to the window and blows a kiss, for words unspoken, for empty phone calls. 

* * *

  
Veronica has smears of chocolate syrup on her apron, and pancake batter on her hands. Eyes kept on her, burning and questioning, but no questions escaped him and she couldn’t bare to ask for answers. Instead she let the glare set her alight, she let his sighs wash over her and let his eyes ask her a million things that she’d never reply to. 

They shared a sadness, and that was enough.

She cleaned tables, she cleaned the booth that he sat at for four hours straight probably twenty times. That that was nineteen times more than she had to, and eighteen times more than she had mentally allowed herself. Every brush of her hand on his made her weak in the knees, hurt in the heart, burn in the soul. But still, they don’t speak. Words unspoken are better than truth-be-told’s. She doesn’t allow herself the luxury of spilling her entire world upon his ears. She doesn’t give him the luxury of telling her about the ballad of their love. Paper cup and string phone call directly from his heart to hers, it already tells her how much he loves her. 

She wipes her forehead with her wrist as she hurried down the steps of Pop’s, rushing her way home, desperate to wash today’s grease and his heart broken stare off her.

She doesn’t even make it to the car park when his hurried steps follow her. “V!” he calls. “Wait!”

If only he knew how long she’d already waited. And how much longer she’d have to wait. He’d understand why she laughs at his words.

But she stops, and she waits. Just like usual. Just like she waits for his paper cup phone call every day. 

Usually his words are so pretty on her, and they’re full of promises and now that she thinks of them, pretty _fictional_ fairy tales. Most of his words are about how her mind fits with his and did she ever wonder what would have happened if they took that chance at pop’s that day? Chances were not taken and this is the hand dealt. Two souls meeting in the middle. Lost in the midst. Unsure of where to go. 

Two souls, never one. 

He stares at her with his jacket on and the collar pulled up, his hands in his jeans pockets and his heart on his sleeve. He doesn’t speak, and neither does she. She stares at him with a thousand words on the tip of her tongue and her heart making that phone call to his that she hopes remains unanswered.

No words are spoken, but she knows they don’t have to be. Millions float in the air, none of them voiced.

He reads them like a book on her body.

He sheds a tear. From the corner of his right eye. He kicks rocks that echo in the car park and when she finally turns away from him, she blows him a kiss to the wind that he catches and puts to his lips. 

A kiss for goodbyes and yes, I do really love you but our worlds have collided and they never really rebuilt after that.

A kiss for love lost, or maybe it was never found.

* * *

  
He comes back to Pop’s every day. One coffee, quick and hurried before leaving. Sometimes with a burger, inhaled in a minute. Conversation is shallow and it hurts and it’s about Betty and Archie. 

His laptop is always tilted in a way that she can’t see and he doesn’t disclose. They speak of light matters and small things.

Sometimes she’ll blow a kiss into the wind. For friendship to come back. For love. Because she misses it. But did love ever exist like she thinks it does? She doesn’t know, it was never spoken. She misses something, of that she’s certain. 

Sometimes when she looks outside as he walks away with the Serpents on his back, she thinks she sees him blow a kiss to the wind too. Maybe it’s for love as well. Or for the rest of forever. Or the next life.

She misses something. She misses the kisses. Even if they were never on her skin.

* * *

Mornings are always hard and tiring. They pull her away from her life and strip her of her wants. She wants to stay home. To be surrounded by warmth and happiness. But, life moves on and being an adult comes with its burdens. Being a functioning member of society means getting up, getting ready. Starting a new day. 

She hates when she leaves, but the days are so fast, she doesn’t even get a minute to breathe.

Archie demands more of her and the boys work hard enough without having Archie be in charge of their hard earned cash so she leaves, heart sinking, for another day at work. Another day of crunching those numbers Archie seems to drown in. 

The air is still and warm and so is her heart when she hears Jughead say; “Blow a kiss for mommy, baby!” and so their daughter blows a kiss to the wind. 

Their son doesn’t leave the house to say goodbye anymore, he’s eight years old and brooding like his father. But Veronica’s little girl clings on to her dad with eyes exactly like his, darkened hair and blows a kiss to the wind for love and family.


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead is reckless when he wipes away Veronica’s tears when the diner is empty and cold. The space between them is warm and comforting. The words they never spoke were cold when they weren’t spoken out loud. The warmth that would have come out if they spoke words out loud would have been enough to set the world on fire. Jughead’s reckless when he knows that it’s true. And oh, how he wishes his world was up in flames.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @hitchhikersguidetotheuniverse for always making my heart swell, to the Jeronica Nation for simply existing.

Reckless is just an elaborate way of saying you don’t give a fuck, of that, Jughead is certain.

Jughead is reckless in his  _ bones _ , in the way he turns up at Pop’s in the middle of the night with Veronica who insists that the multiple cups of coffee are simply because that’s her job and it has nothing to do with the silence that they share that carries everything they want to say but never out loud. He’s reckless when he watches her sway in dimming, midnight lights and shakes that they share from the same straw over whispers of Archie and how he couldn’t promise Veronica forever. Because at the end of the day, they were different and even though they had a love that they tried to force to be the same, there were just too many differences.

Jughead is reckless when he wipes away Veronica’s tears when the diner is empty and cold. The space between them is warm and comforting. The words they never spoke were cold when they weren’t spoken out loud. The warmth that would have come out if they spoke words out loud would have been enough to set the world on fire. Jughead’s reckless when he knows that it’s true. And oh, how he wishes his world was up in flames. 

Veronica is reckless when she touches his hand a little too long, and Jughead’s whispers in her ear that are so close to her skin when it’s just them two in the whole of Pop’s are reckless when he feels his heart beating at the exact same time as hers. He promises that one day she’ll feel better, and Archie would be fine without her, just as she would be without him. He feels the guilt creep inside his skin, he places a reckless hand on her hip that lingers a little too long.

Too many nights end like this, with the dawn's light filtering through morning clouds. In the same way he reads too much into Veronica’s smile - sometimes she’s the same filtered light through his dark morning feelings. 

When they stand face to face amongst the diner’s silence with fingers barely touching and chests rising and falling softly, he’s not just reckless, he simply doesn’t give a fuck. No elaborate way to hide the truth. No comforting, pretty way to hide his feelings.

“I know I’ll be fine without Archie,” she says softly.

“That you will.”

“Because I have you.”

Though magnetism isn’t a real thing in physical bodies, it very much is in soul. When his body begs to be drawn to hers, he lets his soul pull instead, because she can’t see it and he doesn’t show it. His heart aches when instead, he blows her a kiss to the wind that she smiles at, letting it hit her. “To another lost night,” he murmurs.

Her cheeks flush. “May I exchange it for another lost night tonight?”

He doesn’t answer and he doesn’t have to. Each night will be lost with Veronica Lodge. Because pretty words won’t ever hide the fact that at this point in time, he simply doesn’t give a fuck. 

She blows him another kiss to the wind. In exchange for his entire soul for another night.

* * *

Sun radiates through a winter coated window in the form of a hum from a warm body that belongs to Veronica. The trailer hadn’t known such warmth in a long time. Not since Betty hadn’t been around in more than just her body - he feels her mind left his a long time ago. 

Veronica’s heels are mismatched on peeling flooring but yet, he felt like she belonged there. With him. In his home. The trailer was more a home now than it had ever been, but maybe it was bad luck to say so. 

He feels a guilt creeping up in him that he could never speak of, almost an entire year had passed, only short of four days since Archie was spilt tears on Veronica’s satin dress. Something that he hadn’t seen for himself, but Veronica had described it in great detail. He could picture it as if he were present - Archie leaving Veronica. The guilt almost eats him alive when he couldn’t manage any words when Veronica had arrived at the trailer, bloodshot eyes. She had cried, but her sighs of relief had almost sounded like freedom to him. 

Tonight, they lay on the floor with music that fills the silence. 

“Do you miss him?” he asks her through a breath. 

“No.”

He places a steadying hand on hers that she accepts with a smile and closed eyes. “That’s good.” 

She chuckles with her eyes opening to the peeling roof. “When you feel so different to the one person who’s supposed to be on the same frequency as you, it just goes to show you were never on the same frequency at all.” 

“Insightful.”

“Not really,” she murmurs. “It’s merely the truth.” 

When he focuses enough, he can feel frequencies buzzing around him. Two hearts in sync, two hands almost touching physically, forever held in metaphorical reality. Two minds tuning into the same frequency. Until he’s pulled back down to earth and they’re simply two people laying on threadbare carpet with one wearing items that are far too beautiful to be in this place, and a girl far too beautiful to be surrounded by him. “Do you think we’re on the same frequency?” he asks her, fearing the answer. Begging for one at the same time. 

Veronica’s silence rivals that of the cold trailer. “I do, but you have Betty.”

Of that, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if he had her or ever did. But he can’t dwell on it, the frequency doesn’t allow for jolted thoughts. Instead he rolls to his side with his arm resting under his head. He blows three kisses to the wind that she doesn’t see with her eyes closed in winter coated windows. One for the old world, one for the world they’re in now and another for the next. And god, does he hope the next world is kind to the two kids on the same frequency. 

* * *

Convalescing aside, there was something therapeutic about matching songs of the heart to one's feelings to the thought of Veronica Lodge. Vinyl was not only an entire aesthetic, but the crisp, sharp sound resonated in Jughead. Made him feel the words in his bones. She was a soundtrack in his heart. There was the love ballad to their love if he listens to the lyrics of every song.

Vinyl aside, it didn’t deter from the fact he was laying on sheets that Mary Andrews insisted should have been washed over a week ago. Archie’s clothes were strewn on the bed, little letters all signed and sealed to Archie with a kiss in the form of an  _ X _ . Jughead would have recognised the twisted curls of the letters even if he were a blind man. Archie’s  _ ‘I’  _ was dotted with a little heart. Betty had never written him a love letter, and there were no  _ ‘I’  _ in his name, though in the moments like these when he relates every bridge to grunge ballads to his heart beat that calls Veronica’s name, he finds there was a lot more  _ ‘I’ _ in him than there ever was an  _ ‘us’  _ between him and Betty. Every feeling that swelled in him was a pure selfishness. 

In the smallest moment of freedom, when Archie stands with his back to Jughead, the bed shifts and the world seems to stop. Veronica gives a weakened smile that forces his heart to stop as well. The unsettling feeling that sits in him comes from the fact that Archie had insisted that he and Veronica remain friends - the  _ best _ of friends. And how the air is thick when they all sit in Archie’s room with light talk that doesn’t delve any further than what to eat and how school is going. 

Both sets of eyes land on Archie who stands at the open window of his room to gaze at the window across from his, Jughead doesn’t need to see that there’s a blonde standing on her side with a smile that brightens the darkest of places and eyes the glitter even from across the way. A smile he hadn’t seen in the longest time and eyes that didn’t tell the same story to him as they did to Archie. The disconnection between himself and Betty was more evident than ever when she wasn’t sitting amongst them and only Archie’s eyes fell on her in the moment. Though he feels he could fight a little harder and he could ignore the fact that their disconnection was being showcased through her current connecting with Archie through bedroom windows, he feels he has no fight left, or maybe it was all exhausted in years of trying. But the path was laid years ago when New York met Riverdale, if only he had walked that path back then. 

Archie’s sigh is heavy and slow but he turns to look at Jughead and Veronica who sit waiting, unknowingly what for, and says; “Come on Ronnie, you’ll be okay, right Jug?”

The love ballads stop, the vinyl switched off and his entire world follows broad shoulders out of the room. Archie’s heavy feet sound on the wooden flooring of the staircase but sugared lips wait by the door. She blows a kiss to the wind that he catches, “I’m sure Betty is waiting for you, Jug.” He waits for her to go before placing it on his lips.

A kiss to the wind that he already misses. If only she knew what she did to him. If only she knew that he had tried to turn back time in the form of nightly prayers so he could walk the path with the thousands of kisses to many different kinds of winds.   


* * *

He did spill tears after all. After all, he had dedicated so many years to the girl who willingly offered him her heart, and he did give some aspects of his to her as well. He didn’t think he would cry, but he knows he cried for the fact that he had tried. And he had tried so hard with  _ her _ . Betty brought out the strength in him, and the ability to brave the world, even if it wasn’t what his heart had wanted. She made him follow his head, and in a way, he was grateful for it. His heart was stupid, he didn’t trust it anyways.

It always seemed to rain whenever he appeared at the Pembrooke, almost as if the heavens were mourning him. Maybe they knew that in his heart of hearts, his heart lived there in the Pembrooke too. Maybe the heavens were like everyone else that surrounded him - maybe they felt sorry for him. 

Even when she ushered him upstairs, with disapproving eyes on his dirty boots and heavy scowls at his damp clothing, he already felt at ease. There were no static lapses in their frequency. Only him and her on a smooth line. 

The sheets are crisp and straight, smooth and silky even though his heart races to the point of suffocation. His head drops to the floor and for the first time in forever, delicate fingers tilt his chin to look into her eyes. 

The cotton on her body seems foreign, it’s sweet and gentle on her skin. Different to what he’s used to, not as perfect, not as tight. Her face is soft and worried, her brows knit and her lips purse. She stands before him with nothing but her heart, which is just as well, because that’s all he has too. “She left me,” seems to echo through the room, even in the noise of a storm. Even in noise of of his nervous steps and her feet digging into plush carpet. It’s loud and true. 

Her fingers lace with his and her deep sighs seem to ground him. For the first time, they touch with more meaning than he’d ever be able to try and piece together from a million touches from others. “Maybe she was never on your frequency.”

That night, he crashes on the floor that feels better than the ancient bed that his parents had acquired second hand back when they had nothing. It had nothing to do with comfort; it had everything to do with the girl resting next to him on the bed with a face that told him that maybe for the first time in a long time, she was at peace. 

And when he’s half asleep with his fingers still with hers, she blows a kiss to the wind. “For frequencies.” 

He wants to blow one back, to the winds that finally blow with him and not against - for the winds blowing them together, but for now, he’ll save that kiss for a kinder day.

* * *

  
There’s a demon that takes residence in his mind. It rears its head mostly when Veronica hushes loving words in his direction. Because, of course, he’s not good enough for her. 

“I just don’t think it will work out, Veronica,” he mumbles over a 2AM shake. 

The way she stamps her foot with her hands on her hips and a trembling lower lip hurts him. 

  
“We didn’t go through all of this for nothing, Jughead.” 

“We didn’t go through anything.”

A way of distraction is for him to sip obnoxiously through a straw as if it were just another conversation. But it’s not and it definitely isn’t when tears pool in eye corners. “Nothing?”

Always words, never touches. Always  _ light _ words, never too deep. Always begging, never actions. Always promises, never spoken. It wasn’t  _ nothing _ , it was a  _ curse _ .

Jughead knows she knows he’s lying. And he hopes she knows that it’s for the best, because the boy from Southside could never really be with her. Romeo and Juliet isn’t a love story. His mom told him that. It’s a treacherous tale of two people who do not think. Jughead thinks too much. And he thinks about her. 

Oh how the thoughts howl in his mind.

“You know I don’t mean it like that… we just - we could never be together.”

“If things had gone different when we met for the first time, here, in this diner, would you have said to me that we could never have been together?”

If things had gone differently, he would have been the happiest man alive. “We would have run away - I would have done anything to make this work.”

“Then why don’t you do that now?! Why don’t we run away?!”

His mind ticks with how she deserves someone better, someone easier and carefree and who can offer her the whole world. “Because love is supposed to be easier than breathing.”

Her heart beats rapidly. “For once, fight for something. Don’t just wait around for the next life. This is the one we live in, this isn’t one of your stories, Jughead.” 

It hits him like a whip, but he can’t control the downward spiral from here. 

When he doesn’t answer, she hisses; “Sometimes I hate you.”

In a way, it’s a beautiful statement. He takes it as a kiss to the wind, he wears it as he walks out. He hates himself too. 

* * *

He tries to keep away, but he can’t. That magnetism he insists isn’t physical, he isn’t so sure of anymore. There had to be a reason why his entire body was drawn to the Pembrooke. 

Even with the words of her hate still ringing in his ears, she opens crisp, white sheets to him. Maybe it was to comfort him, because they’re both aware of the public engagement of Archie and Betty. And  _ their _ love is so seamless and easy when they’re putting their lips together in Pop’s every few days while Jughead types and Veronica serves their matching shakes with sprinkles. Nineteen seems too young to be married, but if it was measured in time, they’d been in love since they were kids, so he shouldn’t be so surprised. 

Jughead slides into sheets that he’s never felt before. His cold legs covered in denim feel cheap against the thread that is of course, egyptian, and of a count that is higher than what the trailer is worth. 

When he looks to her ceiling and finally allows himself to breathe, he speaks; “I’m just so scared, V.”

“Of what?” she asks stiffly, shoulders tensing next to his. 

“You, me. Us.”

“I am too.” 

He lets several beats escape them, lets them mull over before speaking again. “If the stars had aligned, and I wasn’t so scared of shooting my shot all those years ago at Pop’s, I would have told you I thought you were made for me - I wouldn’t have been able to tell you why I thought that or how, but it’s what I thought when I first met you.” 

When he feels his whole heart sitting on his tongue, her hand finds his under her sheets. “Stars have aligned now,” she whispers. “If only you could see them.”

“I can.”

“As can I.” 

“We’ll be okay, right?” he asks. 

“If we’ve survived off kisses to the wind, we can survive anything.” 

“I love you, Veronica.”

“As I love you, Jughead.” She blows a kiss to the wind, “For allowing us the luxury to actually live.”

He blows one in return. “For love in this world, and for the next world to bring us together sooner.” 

* * *

With eyes all on them from every direction and every booth, the attention is almost suffocating. But Veronica’s hand is in his as they walk through Pop’s at knock off time, her smile holds no shame. Even the sway of her hips seems to put people off. 

When she opens the door to Pop’s on the way out, she stops at the top step. “We must kiss.”

“We must?” he asks, a laugh ringing through the air.   
  
“This is where it all started, it would be bad luck if we didn’t end it here.”  


  
“End?!” Jughead almost chokes, pulling her hand tighter towards him as if not to let her go. “Are you breaking up with me?”

Veronica rolls her eyes, slowly pulling herself from Jughead’s grip before draping her arms around his neck on tiptoes, craning her own neck to reach his lips. “The ending of our old life, the beginning of forever, Holden Caulfield.”

For the first time in forever, her lips meet his. Soft and tender, fast and desperate. He tastes her, feeling her inside his very being. The start to his end. 

When she finally lets go, his fingers dance on the dips of her hips, “I love you,” he says for the umpteenth time. 

She laughs with one hand linked with his and her other on her lips. She blows a kiss to the wind, “A kiss merely for the fact that I love you.” 

He catches it, puts it in his pocket. “For when I really, really need it.” 

* * *

Veronica’s eyes a deep and shallow at the same time. Darkened so much, he can’t see the other side. Shallow in the way he doesn’t think she’s listening. 

Betty and Archie crowd around bonny, pink cheeks and hushed baby’s cries. Their smiles brighten the room to the point that it’s blinding. Oh, how their love stings. 

Veronica’s smile is weak, her lips can hardly turn up and the way her nails dig into his skin hurts, but not enough. Not enough for him to truly feel something. 

Jughead fears that when he leaves the house on Elm Street that Betty and Archie bought to raise their new family in the footsteps of their own upbringings, that the world will crumble and he won’t know how to piece it back together. Even as Betty and Archie coo over their pretty bundle of joy who’s wrapped up in white linen, all he can see in front of him is Veronica clutching herself, covered in red. Soaking in her tears. 

The sound of her mourning was like shattering glass. Archie and Betty’s sound of happiness haunts him. 

They wanted a baby so desperately, but all that they were given were stained sheets. 

Jughead puts his lips to Veronica’s temple, hoping she can feel the kiss in the wind he’s trying to give her in silence. For strength. Because this is the time when he really, really needs that kiss. 

* * *

Tears are on the seventies green bench of their apartment in New York, no proper heating, peeling flooring that reminds him of home and ripped wallpaper. Her tears spill, her smile is both frightening and the best thing he’s ever laid eyes on. The last eighteen months drained them, he felt he had no more strength to give her. 

They had so many repairs to make on the apartment - they left in a hurry from Riverdale and they never did save all the money they needed for the perfect apartment, but any apartment is perfect when Veronica Lodge is in its walls. 

She stands in his shirt, his favourite one that has too many holes in it. Shaky hands grip onto the stick with the plus mark and tears still splattering on the countertop he’s constantly promising he’d fix. She blows a kiss to the wind across that same counter. “To the stars aligning, to better luck this time around, dad.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Leave me love and comments and shit? Plz. I love you. I'll blow a kiss to the wind for you.


End file.
